Talking Rehab with Dr. Fred Bagares

Should You Exercise on Vacation? Rethinking Movement When You Travel

• Fred Bagares • Episode 55

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In this refreshing episode, Dr. Fred shares his personal reflections after a family trip to Jamaica. He explores the deeper value of movement while on vacation—not just as a workout, but as a form of physical restoration. From pacing in airport terminals to spontaneous gym sessions, he invites listeners to reframe how they think about exercise, especially during downtime. If you’ve ever debated skipping the gym while traveling, this conversation is for you.

🧭 Show Notes + Timestamps

  • [00:00] What is rehab? Quick intro and host background
  • [00:34] A family trip to Jamaica: First time vacation stories
  • [01:27] The importance of reconnecting with family and unplugging
  • [02:13] Observing how others unwind—and the urge to move
  • [03:03] The travel struggle: long flights, airports, and lack of movement
  • [04:07] Vacation routine: lounging vs. gym time
  • [05:06] Who exercises on vacation? Noticing gym habits at resorts
  • [05:54] Rediscovering fun in fitness through new equipment and variety
  • [06:20] The deeper why: Moving because it feels good—not just to look good
  • [07:18] The balance between challenge and enjoyment in vacation workouts
  • [07:36] Alternatives to the gym: walking, swimming, exploring
  • [08:19] Revisiting the "movement buckets" concept from earlier episodes
  • [09:00] How movement supports recovery from injuries—even on vacation
  • [09:37] Movement as proactive care, not just reaction to pain
  • [10:09] Reflecting on your relationship with exercise during travel
  • [11:04] Rethinking fitness: If it doesn’t feel good, is it the right kind?
  • [12:15] The risks of going "too hard" and missing the joy of movement
  • [13:28] The preventative power of staying active—especially while lounging
  • [14:34] Final thoughts: Plan how you'll move, not just where you'll go

💬 Quote from Dr. Fred:

“If you’re on vacation and don’t feel like moving, maybe you should reevaluate the kind of exercise you’re doing.”

🧠 Key Takeaway:

Movement on vacation shouldn't feel like a chore—it should feel good, natural, and energizing. Whether you're walking the resort grounds, treading water, or exploring a new city, movement is an essential part of wellness—even when you're resting.

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What is rehab or rehabilitation? My name is Fred Begaris, a board-certified sports and spine medicine physician in Virginia Beach, Virginia. After 10 years of practice, I still find musculoskeletal medicine both fascinating and challenging. This podcast is about the lingering thoughts and questions I've had after residency and fellowship. My hope is to spark discussion, challenge dogma, and share my experiences in musculoskeletal medicine. Welcome to the Talking Rehab Podcast. Hey, what's up, everybody? I just got back from vacation with my family. This past week was spring break, but this year we decided to go on a trip to Jamaica, which was amazing. I'd never been there before and wanted to take the opportunity to spend more time with my kids and my wife because my kids are getting older and I really wanted to spend some special time with them. And I didn't grow up doing a lot of vacations, or at least not vacations where we traveled anywhere. So it's been nice having the privilege and the opportunity to take that time with my family and really reconnect with them as we all can get trapped into the day-to-day grind of things. And I always thought that it was important to reconnect with your family when you can because we tend to get stuck on school, work, sometimes we're on our technology too much, and it's always a good time to connect with one another. We're humans. That's what sets us apart from a lot of other species. We spent about three nights and it was a great vacation. The travel wasn't as long as I was expecting. We only had one layover. It wasn't too difficult getting through customs and all in all, it was a really great vacation. But today's episode is about some thoughts that kind of came across my mind while I was hanging out in Jamaica, specifically about movement and how people vacation, essentially. As I said, I didn't grow up doing vacations, so I didn't have any prior experiences to compare it to. And it's interesting because when people go on vacation, I see them. I've never been much of a beach or a pool person. It just never really seemed appealing to me, but I understand that some people love to just lounge, and that's just never really been something that I like to do. Whenever I have gone on vacation, I tend to like to move. I tend to like to do stuff. Again, not knocking how people decompress, how people unwind. But as we all do on vacation, it's important to indulge, eat, drink, rest, relax, things like that. But what I found was I was actually really craving moving and exercising. It was kind of weird. Traveling for me, no one really likes traveling. The plane ride wasn't that bad, but the whole airport experience, sitting, waiting for the flight, being on the plane in a fairly confined space. I just, I don't really like that feeling. My day-to-day is I'm usually moving a lot from seeing patients. Anytime I'm at the airport, I don't sit down. I take the opportunity to kind of keep moving. So I'll be pacing back and forth, trying to get my steps in, just essentially doing laps around the terminal until we actually take off because I just don't like the idea that I'm just going to sit down, get glued to my phone, and then get on the plane, get on the Wi-Fi, and then I'm stuck there for the next couple of hours. And then I get off the plane, and I go and sit down, and I rest because it's exhausting. So any opportunity, I try to get up and move. So long story short, once we actually got to the hotel, we unpacked, we ate, things like that. But the very next day, we did the beach, we did the pool, and after lunchtime, I was like, I'm going to go to the gym. And I thought that was kind of weird. It's not like I go to the gym every day, but I do. I just had this feeling that I wanted to move. Again, the pool is great, lounging, getting some sun, that's great, but it's like I just had this itch to kind of move. And it got me thinking about how some other people kind of view exercising. When I went to the gym early in the morning, it wasn't like super packed, but there was definitely the early riser crew. And then I went back a different time after lunchtime, and there was almost no one there. It got me thinking, who actually works out on their vacations? Is that something that other people do? I guess I feel like some people look at vacation as like a true vacation, like completely unplugging from their day-to-day routine. So I can see why people don't actually like to exercise a workout, but I'm not really talking about exercising or, you know, working out for the sake of getting my heart rate. I just really wanted to move. And I ended up going to the gym. I went for a run, and then I did some leg exercises, some upper body, some calisthenics. And it got me thinking that of all the exercises that I decided to do, I did some exercises I wouldn't ordinarily do because I decided to take advantage of the equipment that was there. I thought about, do I want to just do the same routine or take advantage of the, essentially, some new equipment that I don't get, I don't have access to in my home. So my approach to it was, I put some weight on, I did some reps, but I really picked exercises just for the sake of just seeing how it felt. And it connected me to the idea that movement or exercise should also be fun. I think a lot of us have a negative relationship to exercise. It's always to lose weight or to look good. And those things are important, but in the big picture of things, I don't think that it doesn't always end up being a positive feeling in a lot lifelong. I think the people who have a lifelong journey of exercise, they find it fun. It makes them feel good. And more importantly, their goals are different. Their primary goals are probably to stay healthy and to stay strong versus fit into a certain pair of jeans. And not to say that doesn't drive, motivate people. I think it does. But I think that also can sometimes give a little bit of a negative feeling at some point in time. And when I was at the gym, I was like, I have to pick exercises that I think are fun. I don't want to pick exercises that are so challenging that I hate it. Because if I do that and I'm on vacation, it defeats the purpose. The next day, I decided not to go to the gym, but I wanted to find different ways to essentially not necessarily exercise, but to continue moving. I walked the entire property a couple of times. I walked on the beach a little bit. And then ultimately, I got into the water. And I just started not necessarily swimming, but just like treading water just back and forth. And I've always had a little bit of a shoulder issue. So swimming feels good, but it also reminds me that I have a shoulder issue. And again, it was just a lot of, it just felt really good. And it got me thinking about my prior episode when I talk about the different movement buckets where you have the everyday bucket stuff, you have the most days, and then you have your kind of challenge days. And vacation should be like everyday kind of movement or someday movement. It shouldn't be, at least in my mind, it shouldn't be super challenging. That being said, it's, everybody's a little bit different. Some people really like the, how they feel after a really good challenge. And then maybe relax, get a massage while you're on vacation. Overall, as we start to head into the warmer months and into the summertime, I wanted to bring this topic up. Because I do think that we all vacation a little bit differently, but I, when you do go on vacation, I think you should try and think about your overall movement and how your fitness fits into that particular time. I know from a rehabilitation standpoint, when people have back issues, knee issues, and they do go on vacation, I always tell them that they should plan to spend some time working on their knee or their back. Like, you know, find a pool, find a sauna, get a massage, do something to treat your, treat the actual problematic area. And using that same thinking and using that same type of logic as like, why do you have to have, you know, a problem before you actually build in time to move your body on a vacation? And I understand that it is very busy. I think it's still important, even in that kind of vacation that you build in some personal time to get your fitness, get your movement in. Because I've also seen people like have a great vacation. They do a ton, but then they come back with an old injury that's been exacerbated because they just didn't, they're having so much fun. And sure, they felt great, but at the same time, it gave that opportunity for them to do a little bit too much. And it just triggered this whole episode. Again, as we head into the warmer months and as we all get into that vacation mode, think about what does movement feel like for you? I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast have pain related issues and movement is the goal because it is limited significantly by pain. But even in a painful state, movements should still feel good. It should still feel like an accomplishment. And when you go on vacation, the way I like to think about it is it should be a time to recharge, not just emotionally, spiritually, even physically. Like you should go on, you should feel like moving more. Or when you do go on vacation, I think you should almost question yourself if you're on vacation and you don't feel like exercising. Maybe that's the takeaway from today's episode is if you're on vacation and you are glad that you're not working out because you're on vacation, maybe you should reevaluate the kind of exercise that you're doing. Because I guess I had the opposite realization on this particular trip is I found that movement is something my body liked. I liked the way that I felt on it. So when you're on vacation, shouldn't you want to feel good? People go for massages. They eat. They drink. They do all the things that make their body, make themselves feel good. So why not, why not movement? If you are sitting at the pool, sitting on the beach, I'm sure that's great. I said, but if you had an exercise that also made you feel good, wouldn't you want to do that on your vacation? Perhaps the only type of exercise that you do is so hard that it doesn't make you feel good. And you don't want to spoil your vacation with that, with a hard feeling like you really get a great workout in. But then you don't want to spoil the vacation because now you're just kind of wrecked for the entire vacation. I've definitely seen some folks like that where their relationship with exercise is it's 150%, you know, go, go, go. And that's what exercising is. But that's not always a great strategy. It's not a great strategy lifelong to go that hard all the time. And again, maybe it's some time for reflection that if you don't feel like exercising or don't feel like moving when you are on vacation, then does movement actually feel good to you? Does exercise feel good to you? Because I think it should. I think it should. I think that it, I understand that people can sometimes want to just completely veg out on vacation. But on some level, I think that movement should feel good. Going for a hike, going for a swim, just touring around the city. I often will tell people to use some sort of activity tracker, pedometer, or something like that. Because people just instinctively, while on vacation, walk two, three times more than their typical day-to-day number of steps. But, you know, as it should, you know, movement should feel good. When movement starts to hurt, people tend to move less and start looking for the reason why it hurts, a structural problem. And while that might be the case, movement should still feel good. Like, if you are on vacation, completely vegging out for like six, seven hours, I think you should have that itch to get up and move. Because if you truly are on the beach that long and you don't move, it's going to hurt when you start moving again. You know, so in a way, movement is the preventative treatment and also the cure, you know, to inactivity. Just some thoughts for you guys. Start planning those vacations now. Start planning the kind of workouts that you want to do. Or just, let's just call it movements. Let's not call it workouts. Start planning how you want to move on your vacation. How you want to move in the airport again. I think that's super important. I just want you guys to stay healthy and moving. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to the Talking Rehab podcast. I hope that this podcast stimulates you to question your own practice and how you approach rehabilitation. I truly appreciate your time and attention. If you enjoyed listening, make sure to like and subscribe to the podcast. I wish you a movement-filled day. Take care.